Illegal and Pirate Whaling (marine mammals)

Illegal whaling occurs in contravention of national laws or internationally agreed quotas, seasons, area restrictions, and other limitations, whereas “pirate whaling” refers to unregulated whaling conducted outside the aegis of the International Whaling Commission, usually under a flag of convenience. Such activities can lead directly to depletion of whale stocks through overexploitation. Furthermore, the lack of catch data, or the reporting of falsified data, can lead to serious error in assessment of the size and status of stocks and erroneous management advice ultimately contributing to their collapse.

I. Illegal Whaling

Known instances of illegal whaling were conducted by several nations. Because the offenses of the USSR were the most egregious, most of this discussion will focus on what is now known of Soviet activities. The Soviet Union conducted massive illegal whaling and falsification of data over a period of decades, with catastrophic consequences for whale conservation and development of the science of whale management. The USSR commenced pelagic whaling in the North Pacific with the Aleut in June 1933 (T0nnessen and Johnsen, 1982). This floating factory operation continued through the 1967 season. After this date, four additional Soviet factory ships conducted pelagic whaling operations in the North Pacific. For more than a decade following the end of World War II, the USSR operated a single whaling factory ship (Sl-ava) in the Antarctic. Beginning in 1959, the Soviets began expanding their whaling operations, adding one new factory ship in each of the next three Antarctic seasons (Sovietskaija Ukraina in 1959/1960, Yuri Dolgorukiy in 1960/1961, and Sovi-etskaya Rossiya in 1961/1962). This expansion occurred at a time when there was extensive discussion at the IWC about declining stocks and other countries were decreasing their whaling operations. The USSR voted against the drastic reductions in catch quotas required to meet scientific recommendations and against implementation of an International Observer Scheme (IOS), both of which were eventually put in place. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, a number of Russian and Ukrainian biologists who had served as scientists aboard Soviet factory ships and knew of the existence of accurate but unreported catch statistics decided to collect them and make them available to the world scientific community. This section summarizes information on Soviet illegal activities during the two major phases of its whaling in the Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific and briefly notes recent information on illegal whaling activities by other nations.

A. Southern Hemisphere

A summary of the disparity between USSR catch data reported to the IWC and actual takes is given in Table I (modified from Yablokoy et al, 1998). These data concern catches made by Soviet fleets working in, or en route to or from Antarctic waters. The period concerned is from the beginning of postwar Soviet whaling in 1947 until the introduction of international observers in the 1972/1973 whaling season, when most illegal activities ceased. During this period, unreported catches totaled 102,335 whales, almost half (44%) of which were humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae). However, 11,397 animals (primarily fin whales, Balaenoptera physalus, which were then an unprotected species) were actually overreported; this was done to conceal the massive illegal catches of pygmy blue (B. mus-culus brevicauda), sei (B. borealis), humpback, and southern right whales (Eubalaena australis).

Massive falsification of geographic catch data began in 1959 and was practiced by all four Soviet Antarctic whaling fleets. The primary areas for illegal catches were numerous sections of the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean (including as far north as the Arabian Sea), and the southwestern Pacific (Yablokov, 1994; Zemsky et al, 1995a,b). IWC regulations prohibited the taking of baleen whales (mysticetes) north of latitude 40°S, although the killing of sperm whales (Physeter tnacrocephalus), killer whales (Orcinus orca), and bottlenose whales (Hyper-oodon planifrons) in this region was permissible. Therefore, the Soviets used the pretext of hunting toothed whales to exploit mysticete populations in the prohibited area. Soviet whaling fleets bound for the Antarctic began search and catcher operations immediately after leaving the Suez Canal or after passing either Gilbraltar or Portuguese waters.

TABLE I

Comparison of Southern Hemisphere USSR Catch Data (1947-1972)”

“Reported to the IWC with numbers actually taken. Modified from Yablokov et al. (1998) and Tormosov et al. (1998).

Virtually all biological data reported to the IWC were “corrected” to disguise the extensive illegal catches. Because of a prohibition on killing mothers and calves, all such cases were either unreported or were concealed with false data. Thus, a fin whale mother and calf might be reported as “two sei whales,” whereas a catch of four female sperm whales would be reported as “two males.” It has been estimated that at least 80% of all officially reported Soviet data on length, weight, sex ratio, reproduction, and maturational state are false.

The scale of the Soviet catches partly explains the apparent failure to recover that has been evident in some mysticete populations despite their supposedly protected status. The Soviets killed 12,896 blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere, of which more than 9200 were unreported pygmy blues killed after the IWC accorded protected status to both subspecies in the 1965/1966 season. Catches were made over a wide area, including the Indian Ocean north of the equator. Thus, these populations were reduced to much lower levels than the 800-1600 (blue) and 10,000 (pygmy blue) that were estimated at the time. Although recent estimates of 500 and 5000 for current Antarctic populations of blue and pygmy blue whales, respectively, are not statistically robust, it is apparent that the population sizes are smaller than would be expected following three decades of protection.

Humpback whales were even more seriously impacted by illegal catches. In addition to the huge number (45,831) of unreported catches made by the Soviets, it is known that additional illegal takes were made in Antarctic waters by the Olympic Challenger, a pirate factory ship owned by Aristotle Onassis (T0n-nessen and Johnsen, 1982), discussed later. The Australian biologist Graeme Chittleborough (1965) asserted that large discrepancies in calculated mortality coefficients for humpbacks could be explained only by the occurrence of extensive illegal catches, a view that is now validated by the Soviet catch data reported here. Many of the Soviet catches were made from the management division known as Antarctic Area V (Dawbin, 1966), which explains the collapse of shore whaling station operations in eastern Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s. There is now evidence of strong population growth in some Southern Hemisphere humpback populations (Bannister, 1994; Paterson et al, 1994; Findlay and Best, 1996), but the status of other stocks remains unclear.

Additional illegal Soviet pelagic whaling occurred in the Arabian Sea on humpback (Mikhalev, 1997a), blue, Bryde’s (Balaenoptera edeni), and sperm whales during the 1960s (Mikhaley, 1996, 1997b; personal communication). This whaling occurred while the whaling fleets were en route to the Antarctic whaling grounds. Biological data from humpback catches made in November 1966 off Oman and India have resolved a longstanding issue regarding the identity of this population, which is unique among humpbacks in that it resides in tropical waters year-round (Mikhaley, 1997a). However, the status of this tropical population of humpbacks remains uncertain.

Southern right whales have always been protected under IWC regulations; this status dates from a League of Nations agreement in 1935. Recovery (increasing populations) is today apparent in only 4 of the 13 putative populations of this species (Best, 1993), although five of the remaining nine stocks are considered impossible to monitor on a regular basis. True data show that the Soviets made large (3368) unreported catches of this species between 1950 and 1971 (Tormosov et al, 1998). Many of these takes were made around remote islands or in midoceanic areas such as Campbell Island, Crozet, Kerguelen, Tristan da Cunha, and the central Indian Ocean.

B. North Pacific

A single Soviet whaling factory operated in the North Pacific between 1933 and 1967, a small vessel named the Aleut. Four additional Soviet factory ships later operated in the North Pacific. A new ship, the Sovetskaya Rossiya (build as the sister ship to the Sovetskaya Ukraina), operated for four seasons (1962-1965) and then again for three more seasons in 1973, 1978, and 1979. The Slava, after working many years in the Southern Hemisphere, worked in the North Pacific for four seasons (1966-1969). Two sister whaling factory ships were built specifically for the North Pacific (Vladivostok and the Dalniy Vostok)-, both started operations in 1963. The Vladivostok operated through 1978 and the Dalniy Vostok through 1979. The main areas of operations for these two fleets were the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and other more southern parts of the North Pacific.

The whales in the North Pacific did not fare any better than those in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the available records are not as good. Doroshenko (2000a) and others reported numerous illegal catches of North Pacific right whales (Eubal-aena japonica) in both the western and eastern North Pacific. Brownell and colleagues (2000) provided some data on massive illegal catches of spenn whales in the North Pacific. Soviet pelagic whaling operations in the North Pacific also illegally took blue, humpback, and gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) (Doroshenko, 2000a). A summary of the inconsistencies between data reported by the USSR to the IWC and actual catches is in Table II.

It is known that illegal whaling on a similarly large scale was also conducted by the USSR throughout the Northern Hemisphere, although relevant catch data have yet to be analyzed. In light of these revelations in both the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere, it is clear that current views regarding the status and recovery potential of virtually all affected whale populations worldwide need revision. This is a long-term project that will continue for the next decade or longer.

At the 50th IWC meeting in Oman in 1998, the IWC took action on the Scientific Committee’s (SC) concern about the falsified Soviet whaling data, mainly for sperm whales, by adopting the SC recommendation to remove official USSR Southern Hemisphere whale catches from the IWC database.

The USSR was not alone in the illegal harvest of whales. Recent evidence on the falsification of catch statistics has been reported in various North Pacific coastal-based operations conducted by the Japanese (Kasuya, 1999; Kasuya and Brownell, 1999, 2001; Kondo, 2001). Suspicions about illegal reporting in Japanese operations are not new and have been presented in the past (Kasuya and Miyazaki, 1997). The scale of these activities, however, was much smaller and the consequences less severe than in the case of the Soviet illegal whaling. Sperm whales catches between 1954 and 1964 were 1.4 to 3 times greater than the numbers Japan reported to the IWC. The total true catches of Bryde’s whales taken during the final years of commercial land-based whaling (1981-1987) off the Bonin Islands were 1.6 times the numbers Japan reported to the IWC. Fin whales were reported taken illegally by the Republic of Korea in the 1980s.

TABLE II

Comparison of North Pacific Commercial USSR Catch Data (1961-1972)°

“Reported to the IWC, with numbers actually taken.

During the 1990s and the following decade, numerous reports appeared regarding the sale of “illegal whale products” from protected whales collected in the Japanese market (Baker et al. 2000). It is argued that Japan’s scientific whaling program (since 1989) has acted as a cover for undocumented or illegal products from various protected species (fin. sei, humpback, and gray). While this is possible, there are no available data to support the occurrence of any large-scale illegal whaling during the 1990s. The most parsimonious explanation for the whale products from protected species is that thev are from (1) whales killed before the 1986 IWC moratorium on commercial whaling, (2) past scientific hunts by Iceland or Norway, (3) by-catches from Japanese fisheries, and (4) strandings in Japan.

II. Pirate Whaling

As noted earlier, unregulated whaling conducted under the flags of non-IWC member nations has contributed to the depletion of some whale stocks. The most famous of these operations was that conducted by interests in Norway and Japan from 1968 to 1979 in the North and South Atlantic under the flags of Somalia, Cyprus. Curasao, and Panama. Meat from the whales was shipped to Japan for human consumption. The Run operated mainly in the South Atlantic from January 1968 to February 1972. It was renamed the Sierra in 1972 and expanded major operations to the North Atlantic in 1975. where it continued taking whales until it was rammed and sunk by the Sea Shepherd (a privately operated vessel dedicated to interference with commercial whaling) in 1979 off Portugal (Watson. 1979). The Tonna joined the Sierra in December 1977 and operated until July 1978. when it foundered during processing of a large whale on deck. The Cape Fisher, later renamed the Astra, operated briefly as a processing vessel for the Sierra in 1979.

The Sierra Fishing Agency submitted its catch statistics to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics in Norway until 1976. when the practice was discontinued because of a perceived lack of credibility of data. Data for the remaining years of operation were destroyed, but some information was salvaged through interviews with former crew members (Best. 1992). The catches included blue. fin. sei, Bryde’s, humpback, and minke (Balaenoptera acutorostrata and/or B. bonaerensis). Large catches of fin whales totaling hundreds were made off the coasts of Spain and Portugal (the IWC’s “Spain-Portugal-British Isle Management Area ) after 1976.

Another notorious episode of pirate whaling occurred in the Southern Hemisphere from 1951 to 1956 by the factorv ship Olympic Challenger and its fleet of 12 catcher boats (T0nnessen and Johnson, 1982). The Olympic Whaling Company, an affiliate of the Pacific Tankers Co. of New York, was financed by the Greek-bom Argentine citizen Aristotle Onassis. The ownership of the vessel, a converted tanker, was later transferred to the Olympic Whaling Company S.A. in Montevideo. Uruguay. The captain was German and the expedition manager Norwegian. The factory ship and some of the catcher vessels flew the Panamanian flag and the remainder of the catchers the Honduran flag. Neither Panama nor Honduras were members of the IWC at the time, so the whaling operations were completely unregulated. The expedition took thousands of whales in the Antarctic South Pacific sector and off Chile. Peru, and Ecuador, including blue, humpback, sei, right, and sperm. Catch data were reported to the International Bureau of Whaling Statistics, but these have been shown to incorporate extensive falsification of numbers, species, and sizes of whales caught (Barthelmess et al, 1997). As noted earlier, these unregulated catches in combination with later illegal catches by Soviet fleets contributed in a major wav to the catastrophic decline of whales in the Southern Ocean, particularly the humpback.